


Trial By Life

by alicekittridge



Category: Black Mirror (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Feelings, Mentions of Violence, POV Third Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-01-20 16:00:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21284360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: Blue had left her things. Written a note. Walked into the water and sailed away on a boat, and for all anyone knew, she had drowned herself in the waves.
Relationships: Blue Colson/Karin Parke
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	1. Fancy A Drink?

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this episode when it first came out, and have watched it many times since then; each time I kept thinking "I have to write something about this!" but could never find the right medium or setting. This is the result of finding the right setting. 
> 
> I know I'm posting to a tiny fandom, but I do hope you enjoy this regardless. It isn't rated for now, but that's subject to change, and the tags will be updated accordingly, too. Thank you for reading xx

_I am trying to find_

_ something perfect_

_ in a world where_

_ everything isn’t_

* * *

“I got your text.”

They’re not the first words Karin has spoken to her since Blue had made it back to England, but they are, by far, the most private. Up until now, everything had been under a microscope and behind a camera, including the trial—one of the most brutal parts of it all. The media shitstorm that followed was tame compared to testifying. The eager, ruthless reporters from the country’s top newspapers and news programs had stayed until the very end, and so there was no room for many private conversations except the occasional, “How are you?” and “A fucking drink would make this easier, wouldn’t it?” One couldn’t have a good conversation after a trial-filled day, either; too exhausted, too numb. All you could do was bury yourself in a dark bedroom to escape the world before having to go out and face it again the next day.

But now, five months later on a rainy, mid-autumn day, standing on Karin’s porch with her new hair and clothes and parka, Blue realizes the room. Nodding, she says, “I know. You deleted it.”

“No digital trail.”

“Didn’t want to keep a souvenir?”

“News you’re not dead is worth more than a fucking souvenir,” Karin says. “You had excellent timing with it, by the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“It came after my testimony.”

“Right,” says Blue, transported back to the bar where she’d sat, glued to her seat, pretending to read while her gaze flicked back and forth between Scholes and the 1990’s television, where she’d seen Karin steel herself against tears. It’d been a knife to the heart. The pain of it is still there, but the past five months have stitched the wound up rather nicely. “I’m glad.” She glances behind her. The rain is heavy sheets, and the air is cold. “Aren’t we going somewhere?” she asks, and Karin snaps into action, beckoning her into the house. It’s large and modern, the walls white and the lines clean, every space tidy except for where there are books and papers stacked—evidence of Karin’s hobbies, or boredom. She used to share this space with someone, Blue remembers, and thinks it’s hard to imagine Karin married, coming home to a domestic life and talking about her work and frustrations. Was it to a dead ear? To a man who couldn’t’ve given less of a shit if he tried?

She follows Karin to the garage.

“You’re deep in thought,” Karin says, holding the door open for her. The lights flicker on at her entrance, highlighting a mostly empty garage with a Land Rover Automatic parked at its center, the steel-grey exterior shining.

“I’m just thinking what a nice house you have,” Blue says. “Fuck, you’ve really gone up the ladder if you’ve got one of those, haven’t you?”

“I was promoted,” Karin says, almost reluctantly. “I was hesitant about it, but I was… convinced it was what I deserved. So I accepted.”

“You do deserve it.”

The car doors open when they’re a foot away from them. “Just get in,” Karin says. Not fond of compliments, this one. “You mentioned you liked The Joiners Arms?”

“I hope it’s all right.”

“I’ve heard it’s cozy.” The engine starts once their seatbelts click. “I could use a cozy place.”

A touch screen between the seats allows them to put the address in. Karin allows the car to back itself out of the garage and driveway, but then turns the auto-drive off.

“Don’t trust it yet?” Blue asks.

“Until these things are proven to be malfunction-free,” Karin says, fishing in her bag for something—her smoke pen, “I’ll drive it myself over longer distances.”

“There’ve been plenty of studies that show they do fine over long distances.”

“Oh yes, like the one that crashed between here and Brighton, or the one from Liverpool to Manchester?”

“Excluding those, then.”

“Fine, sure. Good results otherwise.”

“I get why you don’t trust it,” Blue says after a loud clap of thunder finally fades.

“Because I’m old?”

She smiles. “No. Because technology has the power to fuck us over, and so do the people behind it.” A pause. “Scholes was proof enough of that.”

Karin sucks on the end of her smoke pen. The tip glows aqua. She blows the vapor to a vent, but Blue still catches the scent. Strawberry. “It’s all done,” Karin says. “I’m content to let it lie.” She sighs. “I say that, and then I can’t. Every time I see one of those fucking ADIs I’m reminded of everything.”

“Yeah,” Blue agrees quietly. The car stops at a light. The rain isn’t as heavy. The windscreen wipers squeak against the glass.

“How did you manage it?” Karin asks. “Finding Scholes?”

“He was a careful prick, I’ll give him that. There were tiny crumbs, just a handful, but enough to trace him by. Picking him out… that was the hard part. He’d changed his appearance, see. Shaved head, colored contacts, clean face. You wouldn’t know it was him.”

“You did.”

“I… passed him on the street, in the market. Thought nothin’ of it at first, did a double take. Took the best pictures I could manage. I couldn’t tell outright, so I followed him until I was sure. And then I sent you the text.”

“And here we are,” Karin says.

“Here we are,” Blue agrees. “I guess the study of faces wasn’t such a bad thing.”

“Study of faces?”

“It was a training thing I had before I was your shadow. Basically teaches you how to study facial structure for the purpose of making a positive ID.”

“Sounds like you had an interesting life before this,” Karin says.

“It was all right.” She chews her lip. “I’m interested in yours.”

“Put a brake on it; I’m not drinking yet.”

It wasn’t exactly a no, Blue thinks. A slow smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

Karin’s favorite drink is, much to Blue’s surprise, a cosmopolitan. Blue had narrowed her down to at least a wine woman. She seemed the type: classy, headstrong, likes to keep a bottle of red at home for after-work consumption. Blue’s a beer girl herself, but she’ll have the occasional whiskey, if she’s in the mood for something stronger. The mood hasn’t struck her yet. She settles for a glass of Guinness and explains, at Karin’s judgmental look, “I’ve had a taste for it since my first Irish car bomb.”

“Jesus.”

“Why a cosmo?”

“_Sex and the City._ And an Irish car bomb? Really?”

“I was young and stupid at university once.”

“Weren’t we all?”

“Touché.”

The Joiners Arms is warm, and the lighting reflects that. It’s incandescent, having a yellow-orange hue to it, not unlike artificial sunlight. Blue also enjoys the atmosphere, how it’s almost like a coffee shop on the calm evenings and a concert hall on the ones local bands come to play. But more than the warmth, she finds herself enjoying Karin’s company, how it’s just the two of them, because for months it hadn’t been. Their days were filled with co-workers, people from different agencies, people they were trying to protect, the trial, the reporters… Endless streams of people. It feels odd to be in a room where no one looks at them.

“You know,” Karin says after a moment, “for the longest time I was afraid to go anywhere. I was afraid an ADI would malfunction and kill me. Or that someone would recognize me and confront me and make me uncomfortable to a breaking point.”

“You cooped yourself up?”

“For a while, yes.” She stirs her cosmo with her straw, takes a large sip. “Thank fuck for Doordash. I’m sorry,” Karin adds, waving a hand, “I don’t know why I’m talking about it.”

“No,” Blue says, nearly reaching out to put an assuring hand on Karin’s arm, “it’s all right. Talk about it. I want to know what I’ve missed.”

Karin explains that, a few weeks after they’d found Blue’s things on the beach, a huge debate had broken out with Granular about the ADIs, whether the program was to be shut down and never funded again, or whether they would give the corporation another shot; in the end the decision had been the latter. The ADIs were too crucial for the environment, and until they honeybee population rose to a stable number, the drone insects would remain activated. Granular would, however, have to be extremely careful about the encryption. Since the ADI program’s reinstation, a report went out at the end of each month to the government, the contents of which went into detail about ADI activity, encryption, usage, malfunctions, and the like.

“Poor Rasmus was in the forge,” Karin says. “It wasn’t even his fault.”

“He still thinks it is,” Blue says. She’s been working at Granular, not as a full-time employee but as someone who helps with the ADI repairs and coding. “He’ll have to choose his people more carefully. I’d suggest people with no knowledge of military-grade encryption, but to keep that level—”

“—you need people with that knowledge.”

“Exactly. Double-edged sword.”

“He took a lot of shit.”

Rasmus’ state of being wasn’t unlike theirs. It was impossible not to be, after someone had taken something you created and turned it against you, just to kill almost 400,000 people with it. Their bodies were brought in bags and laid on cots in warehouses meant for lumber and other materials. Something peaceful and life-saving was turned into a weapon, all to kill people who had posted a hashtag without knowing what it really meant. Or if they did, then they were exactly as Scholes had described them: proof that humans hadn’t changed over a thousand years and still viewed death as a spectacle.

“Do you want something to eat?” Blue asks suddenly, wanting to change the subject. She’d been thinking of her dreams of the warehouses. “Fish and chips?”

“Sure.” Karin pulls out her card again and proffers it to her.

“You’re not paying for that, too.”

“It’s cheap shit.”

“Don’t care. I’m buying your food. Maybe another cosmo?” Her glass is empty.

“Suit yourself,” Karin says.

Blue places the order and waits on a stool for the cosmo to be made. A ways away, on a pillar, are new advertisements for happy hour and bands, and an older one advertising the Scholes trial.

**TRIAL OF CONSEQUENCES**

**Airs 3:00 PM, BBC News**

** _WILL GARRETT SCHOLES_ **

** _BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE?_ **

He was, after many weeks. The evidence was heavy. And then, once everyone learned he would stay in prison for a long time, and once they were satisfied with the conclusions that those who testified made, the storm died down, and blew away altogether. It’s still whispered about, and it’ll undoubtedly make it into the pages of some history textbook and be a story told round the dinner table. It makes Blue question whether stories ever die, or if their popularity has a cycle, like the moon or the tides, coming and going, coming and going…

And to think that she and Karin would be part of that history. Their faces were projected and plastered onto every screen imaginable in the UK, possibly the world, displaying their testimonies. Court reporters had written it down. Regular reporters, too. Their names will be in that same history textbook and students will study the case and write papers on the ethics and the methods—

“Here you go,” the bartender says, passing over a cosmo and two baskets of fish and chips. Blue hands her a credit card, but then says, “Wait, sorry. Do you mind if I use cash instead?”

Karin’s where she left her, ankles crossed, running a hand through her modern-bobbed hair, her gaze at the tabletop but mind far away. Blue could take a picture, but Karin would look up as soon as she snapped it.

“Were you flirting with the bartender?” Karin asks when she sits back down.

The fish and chips are greasy and hot. Even after squirting mustard beside her chips, Blue isn’t all that hungry for them, but she eats anyway, for a semblance of normalcy. “I don’t flirt with bartenders,” she replies around a bite. “She gets enough of that shit from men.”

“I was joking. But fair enough.”

“You’re sarcastic as hell, you know that? Makes it hard to tell when you’re joking and when you’re not.”

“It just means I deal with less bullshit. But really,” Karin says, leaning to her right, “she’s not bad-looking.”

“Are you into women? Is that what this is?”

“Are you?”

Blue raises her brows. “Haven’t you seen the way I dress?”

“I do now.” It’s a quick once-over that Karin gives her, but it’s enough to send warm tendrils spreading through Blue’s limbs. “Quirky, but nice.”

“You dress like you’re going out somewhere,” Blue says. “Even for work.”

Karin smiles. The lines at the corners of her eyes are delightful. “Fuck, I do, don’t I?” She takes a bite of fried fish. “There are some days I wish I didn’t care about being so fucking professional all the time. I could just throw on whatever shitty outfit I wanted and go out without a fuck to give.” She sighs. “It takes so much effort, these days, to put myself together. It feels like…” She pauses for a moment, thinking, drinking more cosmo. “Like I’m back to where I was when I was divorced.”

The warmth fades a little. Blue leans forward in her chair. It wouldn’t be inappropriate to put a hand on Karin’s; people do it all the time at bars, in friendship or another meaning, but here, it would be. She asks, “Was he an arsehole?”

Karin shakes her head. “Not at first. It was gradual.” Another pause. “He hated my job. He hated that I was successful. He told me once—” she laughs, “—that I had no heart. Can you imagine being so fucking jealous that your wife is succeeding at her job that the only thing you can think to call her is heartless?” Another sip of cosmo. “I thought the jealousy would go away, but then it just… molted into hate. He became an entirely different person. And at the end of it all, when the papers were signed and he was moved out and I hated him just as much, I wondered if that was who he really was, and if the person who’d courted me, who I’d exchanged _vows_ with, was something theatrical.”

Blue can say nothing for a stretch except, “I’m sorry.” What is there to say after a monologue like that? “I wish I could punch him for you.”

“The thought’s very nice,” Karin says.

“You’re too good for him anyway.” She realizes her Guinness glass is almost empty, that she’d been drinking it in gulps while Karin spoke.

Karin’s eyes are kind, but she says, “I think the Guinness is going to your head.”

As the hour creeps on, the bar becomes more packed with patrons trying to escape the rain, their jackets and umbrellas wet and shoes squelching on the floor. It’ll be a chilled night if it keeps up.

Karin scoots aside her empty basket. Her hands knit together on the top of the table. “I want to hear more about your tropical trip,” she says. “No legal jargon, no formalities. No filter. What did you really think of him?”

“A well-mannered, fucked up man,” Blue replies, without hesitation. “He didn’t threaten me. Didn’t do anything, really, but talk my ear off about human nature. When I asked why he did what he did, he said he… wanted to prove that humans get off on violence, no matter who it’s directed at, even someone who deserves it. That consequences go both ways.” She downs the rest of the Guinness to get rid of the pebble in her throat. She’ll have to change to water soon. “Then I asked him why those 400,000 people, and he just said, ‘A lesson for those who view death as a spectacle, and an example for those who watched.’” He’d brought up the past: hangings were a public event, as were guillotine executions, and the gladiator fights in ancient Rome. “Sometimes I think he had a point,” Blue continues. The mustard on her chips tastes too much like vinegar. “I’m mad to think that, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Karin says, “but that doesn’t mean you think he was justified in his actions.” Her eyes fall to the fish and chips basket. “You’re not going to finish that?”

“I’m not very hungry.” She hands the basket over. Karin eats with gusto. A drop of grease lands on her white shirt.

“Fuck.”

Blue passes her napkins. “Just put some Resolve on it before you put it in the wash.”

“I know how to do laundry,” Karin says, dabbing at the grease.

Blue holds her hands up in mock surrender. She thinks she’d like another drink, something warmer and stronger. Jack Daniels, maybe, just to put a twist on things. “Want another cosmo?” she asks.

“No, I’ve had quite enough.”

“Ice water it is.”

Silence surrounds them when Blue returns with her half-glass of whiskey and Karin’s water. She wants to say so many things, thinks Karin might want to as well, but finding the words proves difficult. Eventually she confesses, “Sometimes I miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“Being on the force. Having co-workers and cases to put my mind on. I miss fucking _legwork_, for Christ’s sake…” She sighs into her whiskey glass and takes a sip, holds the stinging amber liquid in her mouth before swallowing it. “I felt useful.”

“You don’t feel useful helping Rasmus with his bees?” Karin questions, baffled.

“It’s not that. I just mean…” How to explain it? “It made a difference, didn’t it?”

“It did, and still does. But sometimes you find out you’re not meant to work in a field like that. There’s still death and bodies and picking away at dead ends… And,” Karin adds, her expression softening, “I’m not saying this to try to convince you to come back, but it’s different without a very competent tech person.”

“I’m sure.” It may or may not be the Guinness talking when Blue says, “You can rely on me, if you need input.”

Karin nods. “Okay.” She rests her chin in a hand and looks around the place properly. “I can see why you like it here.”

“You should come when there’s a private gig. It gets claustrophobic.”

“I’ll pass,” Karin says.

“You don’t get out much, do you?”

“I’m not young anymore.”

“Thirty-five is ancient.” Blue doesn’t think she imagines the blush spreading into Karin’s face.

“Thirty-seven,” she corrects. “I usually have no excuse to go out.”

“Maybe you could change that.”

“Maybe,” Karin says, and punctuates the statement with a sip of ice water.

By the time they’re heading back to the car, the air is crisp and cold. The only rain that comes down is a drizzle, visible in the streetlamps and the headlights of cars. The Land Rover’s warm when they climb in. The lights inside shine red when the doors shut and a soft female voice says, _“Intoxication alert.”_

“Shut up, I know,” Karin grumbles, buckling herself in and turning the auto-drive on. “Remind me of your address again?”

Blue types it into the console, and then the car drives off. The silence that stays is both comfortable and weighted; it lasts until the car parks itself just outside of Blue’s apartment complex. Other cars line the street and populate the car park but it’s almost completely devoid of people. The streetlamps, with their strange bluish light, create the atmosphere of a horror film. They’re parked under a streetlamp; the light makes the interior glow, mixing with the dashboard lights, putting Karin in a spotlight, who is, despite her too-much-to-drink state, lost in thought. Blue wants to say something, a truth, but it’s Karin who speaks first, her voice quiet.

“I did miss you, you know. It felt like there was a hole in the world.”

The guilt comes washing back up, the same one that’d been on the beach. Blue had left her things. Written a note. Walked into the water and sailed away on a boat, and for all anyone knew, she had drowned herself in the waves. Blue says, around the stone blocking her throat, “I tricked you.”

“It was necessary.”

“Yes, but… I felt guilty doin’ it, Karin.” It’s the most she’s ever said about that moment. “I felt so fucking guilty because I knew what it would put you through. Because you—” Her voice vanishes.

“Because I what?” Karin murmurs.

“Care about me.”

Their eyes meet, and stay. Karin’s expression is stripped, leaving something raw. Moths begin to flutter in Blue’s chest and stomach. A nervousness she’s felt before, notably before her first kiss, or the first time she’d undressed in front of someone else.

“Yes,” Karin says at last.

“I’m sorry about all of it.”

“You don’t need to fucking apologize.”

“Because it won’t make up for anything?”

“You being alive is enough.” There it is again, the steeling. Trying to keep her voice steady so the confidence doesn’t give way.

“Oi,” Blue whispers, leaning across the console screen, feeling no shame when she cups Karin’s face in a hand. Her thumb catches a tear.

“They’re fucking relief tears, don’t worry,” Karin says, but still they come, and she doesn’t pull away. This close, Blue can’t help but let her eyes travel lower, to Karin’s mouth, where her lipstick has faded. Karin does the same. And then they’re leaning to each other, like magnets, and their lips brush once, softly, and part the same way. They breathe the same air. They kiss again, more confidently, Blue’s free hand pulling Karin closer by the lapel of her suit jacket. It’s Karin who deepens it, sighing, holding Blue’s face between her hands, until, suddenly, she pulls away with a sharp intake of breath and says, “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t do this tonight.”

Kiss me? Blue wants to say, but it would be far too pressing. Instead she nods, swallows what kiss remains on her mouth, and says, “Okay.” She gathers her bag, zips her parka all the way up to her chin. Pushes the _open_ button on the passenger door. “Text me when you get home?”

Karin nods.

“Thank you for my Guinness.”

Karin gives a little smile.

Blue shuts the door, walks up the stairs and stands at the landing just before her door. Karin’s looking up at her through the driver’s side window, making sure Blue gets in before driving off. And just like the first night they met, Blue gives Karin a little salute.


	2. Coming Back

Blue thinks about the kiss for days. If she dwells on it, she can feel the ghost of their lips pressing together, the faint touch of Karin’s hands on the sides of her face, the warmth of their closeness. It plays in the moments she’s not occupied: the shower, making coffee before work, during the pauses from working on code or staring down a microscope as she observes the delicate insides of an ADI in for repairs. It plays so much that she realizes she wishes it could happen all over again, more sober, so that she can feel it without the barrier of alcohol. She thinks about the inevitability of the kiss. How the events—dancing around each other at the office, the car rides to questionings, everything—led up to it. Liking someone was mostly guesswork and studying, trying to verify that they do, in fact, like you back. She and Karin had been fast comrades, and immediately worked well together, and though she was quick to trust Karin, it was a little slower on Karin’s part. But she had it. And then it’d blossomed into friendship, with a touch of admiration and pride. It was why it’d been fucking hard to leave it all behind, to trick everyone the way she did. A kiss doesn’t fucking well make up for it, Blue knows, but it’s a good start.

With a sigh, she sets her tiny tools aside and leans back in her chair, away from the microscope. Takes her glasses off to rub at her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept much last night, replaying the kiss like a favorite song, trying to pinpoint the moment she realized she was attracted to Karin. Not at first sight, she thought, but afterwards. Maybe when she was efficient about Jo Powers. Or maybe after the questioning of Liza Bahar, where her take-no-shit attitude had shined through. I don’t know, Blue had said to herself. Was it possible to pin something like that down? All she knows is attraction is a science. You know what you like in a person and you know what about that person you like, but there’s no conclusion on when you began to feel the way you do about them. She’d stayed up investigating and thinking and wondering if Karin, too, was lying awake with an equally as occupied mind.

She’s working, now. Rasmus’ approaching footsteps remind her of that. Quickly, Blue replaces her glasses and peers into the microscope, inspecting her repairs just as the glass door to her lab opens.

“How’s it coming?” asks Rasmus, in his friendly way. He’s wearing a long-sleeved striped shirt, jeans, and a pair of navy Toms despite the rainy weather. The shirt makes him look like a time-travelling sailor.

“Almost done. The sensor’s still a bit glitchy, but I’m sure programming will fix it right up.”

“Good. Great.”

“How are your bees?” She means real bees. Honeybees.

“The beekeeper’s with them now. Want to take a peek?”

“Absolutely.”

The greenhouse is on Granular’s top floor, where the sunlight is most concentrated. It’s an enormous room divided into four sections, mostly for plants. The last section is where the honeybee hive is, mixed in with flora native to London’s geography. It looks like a simple white box with a smaller, rectangular opening cut into the base, but inside is a colony of 4,000 bees. The section is smoky when they get to it; Blue hides a coughing fit in her elbow.

“Sorry!” the beekeeper, a woman named Rhoda from Cornwall, says. “Should’ve warned you about the smoke.”

“It’s fine,” Blue says, coming into the section’s warmth, admiring the frames that Rhoda pulls from the hive. The bees aren’t bothered by the movement; they carry on as if nothing is happening. The honeycomb is a golden color, some already filled with honey, others filled with eggs the size of a grain of rice.

“They’re happy little things,” Rhoda says. “The queen’s a good one. Haven’t killed her.”

“How many other hives have you seen?” Rasmus asks.

“About thirty.”

“They’re all thriving?”

“Twenty-eight were. One had colony collapse disorder. Another was getting ready to split to make a new one. But,” she slides a frame back in and takes out another, “this is the most progress we’ve had in a while.”

The news makes Blue feel hopeful. If this keeps up, within a few years there won’t be any need for ADIs. Granular, of course, will have to change their outlook, but they’ll still be in business, being one of England’s top research centers for bees.

Rhoda puts the hive back in order and beckons Rasmus over to a quiet corner where they can talk shop. Blue makes herself at home near the hive, studying the bees coming and going, the little dances they do at the entrance. There had been bees at her childhood house in Liverpool. Back then, she couldn’t imagine what would come. It’d seemed bees would be around forever.

“Quite fascinating to watch, aren’t they?” Rhoda says, startling Blue from her reminisce.

“They are,” Blue agrees. “Seeing them again makes me feel like an astronaut seeing Earth from the ISS.”

“Gazing down and being reminded of one’s own humanity.”

“You’re doing very well.”

Rhoda blushes. “Thank you, very much.” She gestures to the hive. “There’ll be plenty of honey from that hive before winter.”

“How much?”

“A gallon. Maybe a little more. I’ll be sure to save some for you and Rasmus. He’s missed it like hell.”

“That’s kind of you.” Until now, England hasn’t had a bottle or jar of honey on store shelves in almost three years.

Rhoda’s phone rings. She bids Blue good day before she takes the call.

Alone in the room, Blue scoots closer to the hive. It’s warm up here, unlike her lab, where she has to layer up in sweaters. And humid, too. It feels like a summer afternoon in November. The bees buzz around her, their stupor from the smoke wearing off, flying close to her navy sweater and then away when they realize she isn’t a flower. There’s a small opening in the window that allows them to leave. They’ll be foraging on winter flowers until the weather is too cold. She watches them for a long time, thinking she’ll bring Karin up here, if she has the time, and they can watch the bees together, marvel at their reappearance.

“The only way they’ll crawl up your nose is by accident,” Karin will say, and they’ll laugh.

Work is a little easier when she returns from the greenhouse. Blue makes note of how she feels and decides she’ll implement at least half an hour each day where she can go up and sit in the greenhouse. Rasmus won’t mind. He spends a lot of his time up there anyway.

She phones him when the ADI is as finished as it’s going to get and tells him he might have to do the sensor coding.

“That’s doable,” he says. There’s a pause, and a rustle of paper. “How do you feel about lunch?”

“Make it Greek and I’m yours for an hour.”

They drive into the city in Rasmus’ car. It isn’t a Land Rover Automatic, but a standard transmission BMW M3. It purrs when he steps on the gas, like a large white cat. The rain still comes down in a sheet. Rasmus is a perfect gentleman, sharing his umbrella until they reach the door of Opso. Blue thanks him.

Rasmus asks, after a silence has passed, “Have you seen anything of Karin recently?”

The question takes Blue by surprise. She didn’t think Rasmus liked Karin much. At least, not enough to ask after her. “I have,” she replies. “On Sunday, actually. We went out for drinks.”

“She’s doing well, then?”

“Yeah. Pretty well.” Her lips tingle with the kiss. It projects in her mind until Blue cuts it off, allowing Rasmus to guess that the redness in her cheeks is from the cold and not something private.

“The trial was very rough. I kept meaning to get in contact afterwards. It’s just… Well. ADIs and bees are very demanding of time.”

“She’ll understand,” Blue assures him. “But how are _you,_ Rasmus? I know you’re my boss, but I want a real answer.”

Rasmus takes his time, deep in thought. Their drinks come. They place their food orders. He says, “I’m a mix of things.” A deep breath. “The whole ADI incident has made me feel guilty, but the rise of the honeybee population has made me hopeful.” He chuckles. “I never knew it was possible for someone to feel so many things at once.”

“Do you blame the media for the guilt? The trial?” He was under a magnifying glass in the courtroom and an even larger one with the media, most of whom attacked him wrongly and wrote infuriating, inaccurate pieces blaming Scholes’ actions on Rasmus’ incompetence. Enough was written that Rasmus probably saw bold headlines flashing in his dreams.

“Not entirely.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You say that, Blue, and I appreciate it, but—”

“No, I’m not just sayin’ it.” She doesn’t hesitate to put her hand on his. “You did your best to keep the program secure. You had military-grade encryption on it, for fuck’s sake, and still someone found a way in through the back door the government wanted you to keep in and used it for something evil. You want someone to blame? All right. But blame those government cronies that forced you to put in a back door. Blame Scholes for finding it and being clever enough to use it against people as a moral lesson.” She squeezes his hand. “You did your best, Rasmus. That’s all humans can ever hope for.”

Blue hauls a stack of work from her car, holding it in one arm and her keys and umbrella in the other. She’s been a Londoner for years and has come to love the city, but she hates the autumn weather; the rain is inconvenient at most times. She takes the stairs slowly and is almost to the landing when a car honks insistently on the street. She ignores it. Someone was probably jaywalking. But it blares again, a series of three, and so she turns.

It’s Karin’s car.

Blue smiles, steps down a few steps, and waits for Karin to climb out before she calls, “Is this work-related?”

Karin doesn’t have an umbrella. She’s drenched when she reaches the base of the stairs. “It’s not,” she says. “Could I talk to you?”

“Yeah. Come up.”

Once inside her apartment, Blue is suddenly aware of just how chaotic it is. There’s a clutter of shoes at the entryway: sneakers, boots, running shoes. Her kitchen is mostly tidy but her breakfast dishes loiter in the sink. She doesn’t even want to think about her bedroom, where her desk is piled with research and tech and her floor is littered with clothes in desperate need of a wash. Karin doesn’t comment, only leans over the kitchen sink to squeeze rainwater from her hair.

“Here.” Blue gives her a hand towel.

“Thank you.”

“Want tea?”

“No,” Karin says. “I won’t be here very long.” She takes a chair at the table and towel-dries her hair. Blue sits across from her, hot with nervousness despite the light chill in her apartment. She wishes Karin would’ve said yes to tea, so that she could have a cup too, and wrap her hands around it to hide their trembling. Karin sets the towel aside and says slowly, “About Sunday… I had a bit too much.”

Blue bows her head. Swallows. “You’re really blamin’ it on drink?”

“What else is there?”

“Attraction.”

“On your part, maybe,” Karin says.

Blue scoffs. “You don’t kiss someone like that when you don’t feel anything for them.”

“Blue…”

“You know it.” Heavy silence. Blue says, in a gentler tone, “Look… I get you might regret it. Maybe you did have too much, I don’t know. But I don’t think I’ve been reading you wrong.”

Karin says nothing. Her face is a mask. The only emotion Blue can discern from it is loss. Loss for words. Loss for explanations.

The question escapes before Blue can stop it. “Did you like it?”

Karin sighs deeply, rubs her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. “Yes,” she replies quietly. “And it scares the shit out of me.”

It isn’t a rejection, Blue realizes, but there’s a feeling of disappointment crawling, spiderlike, into her chest.

As she’s leaving, Karin says, “There _is_ a work thing I could use your eyes on.”

“Okay.”

“When do you get a day off?”

“Wednesday next week,” Blue replies.

“Come by at eleven. I’ll buzz you in.”

“Sure.”

“And Blue?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” Karin says. “For hearing me out. And for the towel.”

“Anytime.”

—

Come Wednesday, Blue gets breakfast before stopping by police headquarters. She doesn’t know what Karin likes, but hopes a croissant and coffee will suffice. Full English doesn’t seem her style anyway. She texts Karin when she’s at the doors. A buzz sounds, and she walks in. Everything still looks the same, down to the thin carpet covering some of the floors. The people are different, with a mixture of a few familiar faces, but no one Blue really knows. It’s amazing, she thinks, how time can change so many things, even when the gap between events is rather small.

Karin’s waiting by the elevators when she gets off, dressed in black pants, a powder blue Oxford shirt with a suit jacket over it, and brown boots. There are also, Blue notices, a pair of small silver earrings in her lobes, with even smaller sapphires embedded in them, sparkling in the office light. There’s an air of professionalism about her good morning. It briefly evaporates when Blue hands her the croissant bag and cup of coffee.

“What’s this?”

“Breakfast,” Blue replies. “Or brunch, if you want to get American about it.”

“You got me coffee.”

“I’ll drink it if you hate it.”

Karin shies the cup away, cradling it against her chest. “I like coffee,” she says. “Come in and meet everyone.”

Everyone she’s introduced to is under Karin’s command. There are CIs Evelyn Harley and Michelle Clark, both of whom shake Blue’s hand firmly and warmly. Then there’s PC Andy Knowles, whose handshake is lighter. He looks fresh out of university. Karin explains that he works the tech side of things.

“Nice to meet you,” Blue tells them.

“We know who you are,” Evelyn says. “I mean, not really. We’ve just seen you on TV.”

“Did you really come back from the dead?” Andy asks, partially joking.

Blue holds back a chuckle.

“Blue’s not here to answer stupid questions,” Karin scolds. “She’s going to help us with the Travers case. I’m going to get you a chair,” she adds, and fetches one of the more comfortable ones. Her underlings are staring, Blue notices, hoping they’re not calculating what this gesture means and instead thinking it’s Karin being polite.

They bring Blue up to speed. Pierre Travers, 32, former pilot in the Royal Navy turned tech enthusiast, recently under investigation when his girlfriend, Shannon Byers, was found dead in her apartment in Crystal Palace. Current whereabouts are unknown. Last seen at his apartment in Soho. It’d been recently cleaned out, save for a hard drive Karin and crew had found in a vent in the unused second bedroom.

Andy fetches the drive in question. It’s the newest Seagate model, the color a custom one called _rusty red. _The model is programmable, even to the point that the user can encrypt it. He says, “He definitely took advantage of the encryption capabilities. It’s heavily done.”

“How heavy?” Blue questions.

“Almost military-grade, if I had to guess.”

“It would make sense, given that he was in the Royal Navy.”

“But he was a pilot,” says Evelyn. “It’s not like he needed to keep government secrets.”

“There’s quite a lot of that shit going on these days,” Karin says. She doesn’t need to elaborate for them to know what she means. “We think he’s hiding something on the drive.”

“When do you need results?” Blue asks.

“Soon. A few days, maybe. It’ll take a lot of schedule-balancing on your end.”

Blue nods. “I’ll make the time.”

By evening, they’ve gotten no further than they were that morning. Trying to break the encryption on the hard drive has made them realize that Travers is far more intelligent than people have been giving him credit for. Blue and Karin discuss it as they make their way out of the building and into the cool night air, running over a list of reasons why a Royal Navy pilot would feel the need to do something like this in the first place.

“If there’s a stash of porn on it, I’ll shoot him myself,” Karin says.

“I doubt it’s that.” Blue chews the inside of a cheek. “I don’t know if I can crack this on my own.”

“You managed with Rannoch in 2015. What makes this so different?”

“Rannoch’s encryption wasn’t military-grade. And every coder is different. Some are messy and complicated, others are elegant and complicated… It’s like a digital painting with all these symbols and layers.”

“But all you have to do is hold the right brush.”

Blue smiles, shakes her head. “You make it sound easy.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be best friends with this shit? Like an extension of your arm?”

“I’m qualified for it.”

“Or maybe you just think I’m too old to understand.”

“When are you going to let that go?” Blue says.

“Whenever it stops getting on your nerves.”

“I’ll be dealing with it the rest of my fucking life, then.” They walk side by side on the sidewalk, hands buried in their pockets, elbows almost touching. If only they were out in the countryside, Blue thinks; they could be walking in the grass, underneath an expanse of hundreds of blinking stars. She says, “You should come by Granular. Talk with Rasmus about the case. He’s familiar with this kind of encryption.”

“Maybe,” Karin says.

“He asked about you.”

“Oh? When?”

“Last week.”

“What did you tell him?” Karin asks, and it means many things. _Did you tell him we kissed?_

“Only that you were well,” Blue replies. “He’d like to see you.”

Karin hums.

Blue continues, “There’s a greenhouse on the top floor. Has a section for honeybees.”

“Honeybees?”

“A hive of four thousand.”

“Jesus,” Karin says. “What a fucking sight that must be to behold.”

“You have no idea.”

They’ve walked to the building’s car park, stopped just feet away from Karin’s car. She asks, “Still taking the tube?”

“Yeah. You don’t have to drive me anywhere,” Blue says. “I really don’t mind.”

“If you say so.” Karin glances at her car with a look of reluctance. Blue knows the sinking in her chest is the same feeling. She hadn’t wanted the kiss to end. She doesn’t want this to end, either. She could add up all their moments together and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“Thanks for trusting me with this,” Blue tells her, patting the pocket of her bag, where Travers’ drive rests.

“You offered your help.”

“You said you needed it.”

“I do.” Karin zips her jacket up further. “I’d appreciate updates while you’re working on that.”

“Of course,” Blue says. She’ll give Karin anything she wants.

“I’ll let you know about Granular.”

Blue nods. Bids Karin goodnight. Wishes she could take Karin’s hand from her pocket and kiss it, if a kiss on the mouth is too much. She files the thought away as she descends into London’s damp, warm underbelly.

—

While Blue is repairing code for an ADI hive in the greenhouse, a knock sounds at her lab door. She glimpses Karin and Rasmus, holds a finger up to them to tell them she’s almost done. She types in another line, checks it over to make sure it’s right, and slings her jacket over the inside of her elbow before exiting the room to greet them.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon,” Blue admits.

“Maybe I was eager to see the bees,” Karin says. “Rasmus buzzed me in.”

“We’ll be in the greenhouse,” Blue tells him. They head to the elevator that’ll take them there.

Blue can tell it feels strange for Karin to be here. This was the setting of the last act of Scholes’ plan. They’d witnessed it in the control room, to a soundtrack of a blaring alarm and a backlight of white and red. The greenhouse is far away from there; a different environment. The memories won’t resurface as strongly.

“You must enjoy working here,” Karin says. The elevator’s ascent is a whisper. The only thing a rider is aware of is that the elevator has a solid floor and four glass walls, so they can see themselves going up when they can’t feel it.

“I do,” Blue says.

“Fucking good pay.”

“It’s more than I need.”

“And you’re still living where you are.”

Blue smiles. “I like where I live. It’s quiet. My neighbors aren’t arseholes. I couldn’t live anywhere more expensive.”

“Why not?”

“I’d feel like a too-privileged fuck.” She chews her lip. “You’re still in the same place.”

Karin nods. “Yes. Can’t bring myself to move out. Or look at an actual house that isn’t a fucking rowhouse.”

“But you’ve thought of it.”

“Are you saying you’d tag along if I wanted to look at houses?”

“If you’re in need of a second opinion,” Blue replies.

“So domestic,” Karin says with a half-repressed chuckle.

The greenhouse is brightly lit, all the automatic shades rolled up in their metal boxes in the rafters. Karin takes her suit jacket off and makes to tie her hair into a ponytail, but gives it up with a small curse. The troubles of having in-between hair, Blue thinks, leading Karin to the beehive; it’s too short to style properly and too long to be out of the way.

Blue gestures to the beehive, and for a long time Karin stares in silent awe before she says, “God, it’s a sight for sore eyes.”

“Come closer,” Blue says. Together they sit at the edge of the hive, where they can see the entrance. “See the ones walking out there? They’re guards. Never leave the hive.” When other bees land, they dance, then part, and turn and dance with another. “Dancing’s a form of communication, even in animals.”

“It’s fascinating.” Karin draws her legs up, props her chin on her knees. “I was never any good at dancing.”

“No?”

“Nope. Didn’t have dancing at my wedding, except for one, for tradition’s sake.” She watches a line of bees fly out, some spreading to the greenhouse flora, others going out the window and into the world. “Will there be honey?”

“About a gallon,” Blue replies, “according to the beekeeper.”

“I’d like to tell her I’m stealing it. So I can put it on my toast.”

“Not your sausage?”

“If I’m feeling adventurous.” A bee flies near her, buzzing around Karin’s shoulder, checking her out. She tells it she’s not a flower, despite the color of her shirt.

“It thinks you’re a hydrangea,” Blue jokes. Eventually the bee flies away.

“When you work here,” Karin says slowly, “do you ever think about what happened?”

Blue nods. “It’s different. But I’ll get little flashbacks sometimes, just for a second…” She keeps her eyes on the dancing bees. “I have dreams about the warehouse. Nobody’s there. Just me and the bodies, all these faceless masses in bags.” Upon waking, the dreams leave her in a state of paralysis, unable to do anything but lie on the bed, skin cold with sweat, staring listlessly at the fan. She keeps that part to herself. Karin has a vivid enough imagination. Blue continues, “I’m quite hopeful with the bees coming back, but there’s a part of me that’s scared shitless—what if they die out for good next time?”

Karin’s silence is thoughtful. There’s a furrow between her brows, a slight frown on her mouth. She rubs at a spot on her boot with a fingernail. “I dream about Clara,” she says. “She’s dead, just… staring up at me. And I know her eyes are soulless and she’s still but it’s like she’s looking at me with a look that asks me, ‘Why didn’t you try harder?’” She plucks at a shoelace, the action angry. “‘Why didn’t you fucking try harder?’”

The question has haunted Blue, too, but in this moment, she thinks Karin has had it worse. Divorce is enough to make one think half the fault is theirs. Blue imagines the aftermath of divorce to be like grief. Your house is as empty as you are. Everything feels too big and the world is too loud, filled with happy people everywhere you look: the old couples strolling in the park, still in love many years later; the young ones looking at each other in the way only young people in love did—in disbelief. You imagine what the hell makes them so happy and you try to imagine yourself that happy again, but it feels like an unachievable pipe dream; something you’ll aspire to get to, but the shelf is too high for you to reach.

Carefully, Blue puts a hand on Karin’s shoulder. Lets it stay there. The silence says everything she wants to.

Karin shifts, stretching out her legs, settling her weight to her hands when she leans back on them. Blue takes her hand away. Out the window, there’s an expanse of nature: fields freshly mowed, the lines cutting diagonally across them, half-brown in the autumn weather; trees turning, their leaves a blaze of golds and reds and shades in between. They’ll be naked skeletons in winter, bony fingers poking from the ground and covered in snow. Being in the greenhouse, whose temperature is kept at a steady 72 Fahrenheit, makes Blue long for summer days. She says as much to Karin, who groans at the thought and says, “I’m not ready for cold weather.”

“Don’t you like Christmas?” Blue jokes.

“Do you want the loaded answer or the simple answer?”

“Whatever you want to give me.”

Karin thinks. “I don’t like the cold,” she says. “I fucking hate how it gets dark early. I hate wearing layers. I hate that you can’t go out anywhere and sit out anywhere.”

Seasonal depression, Blue thinks. She knows people with it, has seen how miserable they get when they go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. Darkness changes the mind, the expression goes, and she hates how it’s a perfect fucking metaphor for them both.

“I don’t mind the cold, sometimes,” Blue says. The air is fresher when it’s cold, and sometimes she’ll stand outside her apartment, on the landing, and breathe it in, even when she’s shivering, watching her breath steam in the bitter dark air and evaporate into nothing. She would smoke there, if she were a smoker, and watch the people drive by until her cigarette was down to the filter.

“At least it’s warm here,” Karin says.

“Makes me want to move my lab. It’s freezing most of the time.” It has to stay that way, because of the tech. So much evolution in the tech world and yet it still had to sit in a cold room to run properly. “I’m guessing you don’t like snow, either,” Blue ventures.

“It makes for pretty pictures, I’ll give it that. It’s a nuisance otherwise.” Karin pauses. Her frown becomes deeper, and then she says, “I’m not just here to see the bees.”

“Oh?”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sting me,” Blue says.

“Very smooth.” Her smile vanishes a little. “Does Granular pay you enough that you can go out somewhere fancy?”

Blue chuckles, in both amusement and disbelief. “What, like a party?”

“No, not a party. I mean a restaurant.”

Oh, shit. “Are you asking me to dinner?”

“Might be. Not anything—you know.” Not like a date, are the words she doesn’t say. “Just something out of the ordinary.”

“Yeah,” Blue says, after a brief, shocked silence. “Where were you thinking?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hydrangeas are native to Asia and the Americas. The color of their blossoms depends on the acidity of the soil in which they're planted. The bluer the blossom, the more acidic the soil; the redder, the less acidic. Their greatest diversity can be found in China, Japan, and Korea.


	3. The Right Impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time. The next one will be a lot longer and will take a while to write. Balancing hobbies and working full time is no joke...

It isn’t a date, and yet Blue finds herself gazing at her reflection in her full-length bathroom mirror, finishing the touchups to her hair—which she had, by some miracle, managed to pin up into a sort of bun. It’s held together by a butterfly hairclip, the wings embedded with real emeralds. (A gift from her very late grandmother.) The dress she’s wearing is black, a classic cut with a slit in the thigh. It isn’t anything too revealing, but it’s enough to reveal a little and leave the rest to imagination. She doesn’t remember buying it. It’d been in the back of her closet, smelling of dust and a faint scent of detergent from when she’d washed it long ago, waiting to be worn, happy that the opportunity’s finally come. She wants to put effort into this, even though it may end up being too much. She slips her feet into a pair of black pumps and remembers Karin had said “somewhere fancy.”

As she makes her way into the tube, Blue tries to remember the last time she’d gone to dinner with someone. Not with a friend, but someone she liked. She has memories of wineries and steakhouses with different people, and one… Oh, yes. The Ledbury. The fanciest restaurant she’d ever been to. The woman who’d taken her there was someone from her old job, an analyst, Rebecca Hendry. She’d been well-off and paid for everything. She wasn’t the snobbish kind of rich person, either, which was part of what drew Blue to her in the first place. She was a romantic, and had dreams of becoming an artist, but they never saw the light. The affair didn’t last long; a couple months, Blue thinks now, but good months. They’d had their fun and drifted apart, though Blue had wished, several times, that it could’ve been serious. Gone beyond dinner and walking the parks and retreating warmly into bed, but taking a turn down that road seemed to frighten people off.

This isn’t Rebecca Hendry, or any of the other people. It’s Karin. Just the thought of it makes Blue’s heart rise in her chest, as if it’s filled with helium.

She’s heard talk about The Five Fields. Driven past it, too, in company cars on the way to a case or two, but has never been inside it. It feels odd to be walking up to its doors, like she’s dressed for a party but wasn’t invited to it. Five-star restaurants are for rich people. Or married people celebrating an anniversary. Or someone with an intent to propose. She reaches for the handle before she can bail. Blue’s met with a bright interior, the décor modernly elegant, something out of a romantic film. The staff wear crisp clothes: waiters in black pants and white button-up, ironed so closely the wrinkles are invisible, the collars and sleeve-tips starched; hostesses in all black, their shirts crisp too.

“Hi,” Blue says. “Table for two.”

“May I have a name?”

“Blue.”

“It’ll be about ten minutes,” the hostess says.

Blue waits in the entryway, shifting weight from one foot to the other, taking in the details of the restaurant, its people, the food that’s brought out on trays, the drinks, and is interrupted by a hand touching her lightly on the arm.

“Hey,” she says to Karin, who wears a black pantsuit and three-inch heels.

“You look nice,” Karin says. “Where’d you get that?”

“My closet. No, really,” she says, at Karin’s raised brows, “I don’t remember buying it.”

“Narnia knew your need, then.”

“I feel overdressed.”

“It’s elegant; not over-anything,” Karin says. “You pull it off well.”

“You don’t?”

“Never been a fan of dresses.”

Blue can’t imagine Karin in one. When she thinks of her, it’s always in her button-ups and blazers.

Their table, when they’re led to it, is in the middle of the room, surrounded by others. Conversations overlap and blend into a single noise, where some words stand out and others are only babble. Public privacy: they can talk without being overheard, but any action, if not done with subtlety, would be noticed.

A waiter comes by for drink orders.

“A vodka martini with three olives, please,” Karin says. “And a glass of water with lemon.”

“Is the martini shaken or stirred?”

“Stirred.”

“And for you?”

“Just water, thank you. No lemon,” Blue says.

“No wine?” Karin jokes when the waiter has gone.

“I don’t really drink it.”

“Should’ve ordered a whiskey.”

“Is that posh enough?” Blue asks, a single pulse rushing through her when Karin smiles at the question.

“To some people,” she replies. “They think themselves whiskey connoisseurs when they come to places like this.”

“You must have experience with that.”

“Can you say that with a scientific certainty?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Blue says with an American accent, “I can.”

They pick up their menus.

Blue asks, “Have you been here before?”

“Yes,” Karin replies, not looking up. “On an anniversary.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Won’t it have too many memories for you?” Should we go somewhere else?

“I wanted to make new ones.” Karin glances up. “Is that a crime?”

“No,” Blue says, fumbling a bit, “I-I just…”

“You’re worried I’m not over him yet,” Karin states, her tone both serious and gentle. She’s folded her menu up, set it to her right.

“I suppose.”

“You have a very hard time saying what’s on your mind.”

“It always put people off,” Blue admits, an embarrassed blush creeping into her face, but it doesn’t have much time to see the light—the waiter comes back with their drinks. He asks for orders. Karin gets the cod with Romanesco and seaweed. Blue asks the waiter what he’d recommend, since she’s never been here in her life; he suggests the mutton with red onion and potato. Blue agrees to it, and orders a single malt whiskey just as he closes his book.

“What do you mean,” Karin asks, “that it put people off?”

Here we go, Blue thinks, and takes a deep breath before she begins, “I’ve never been in a serious relationship. It’d be a relationship, but they were… fleeting, at best. The desire for seriousness was always from my side. I’d express it, and they’d retreat.” Her whiskey arrives, and she takes a sip of it, for luck, she supposes. “So I just learned to shut up and go with it, be happy with whatever it was, mourn a little when it was over, and move on.” She continues, entirely aware that she’s monologuing, “They say we attract different people to us, like it’s a blessing and a curse, and that’s mine.”

“Attracting people who’re in for the fun of it and not the other shit?”

“Yeah, if you’d like to see it that way.”

“I do see it that way.”

“But feelings fade, too,” Blue says. The sad, glassy look that crosses Karin’s face is a reminder that she knows that lesson all too well.

“When was your last relationship?” Karin ventures.

“A couple years ago. Before all the Rannoch business, thank God.”

“Someone from work?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sensing a pattern,” Karin says.

Blue smiles, amused and nervous. “Can I help it if the people I work with are both attractive and brilliant? It’s a dangerous combination.”

“Brilliant?”

“Well, you are. I thought it the night we met.”

It sends Karin into another thoughtful silence. Then she says, “You, too.” She plucks an olive from her toothpick with her teeth. “So you went to dinner with this person from work?” she asks.

“Several times,” Blue replies.

“Anywhere like this?”

“Fancier.”

“What?”

“She took me to The Ledbury.”

“Fuck,” Karin says.

“Don’t feel outmatched,” Blue assures her. “I’m touched by this.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Blue says after a moment. It’s the truth, and it makes her feel sour that she can’t explain it more than that.

She has Karin talk about work for most of dinner. She wants to hear everything, wants to know what she can focus on that will help the case progress. She’d left working on the hard drive for this, and though she doesn’t regret it, it’s eating away at the back of her brain. The more Karin talks, the more Blue senses several late nights in the coming future. The Rannoch case had been the same way: the souvenir folder took many sleepless nights and dead days and everything in between. She’d felt ghostly, half-present in the day but fully so by dark, and the work had paid off. A Wednesday morning, she remembers, at half past two AM.

Karin orders another vodka martini, wets her throat with it after her half-monologue. Blue says, “You drink those like James Bond.”

“Sure,” Karin says, biting into an olive, “but unlike him, I’m not a misogynistic cunt. Nor do I have a license to kill.”

“He eats expensive dinners with women.”

“So does every rich bastard and their mother.”

“Doesn’t tell how he’s really feeling.”

“A very human thing to do,” Karin says. “Being vulnerable is taking a big fucking leap off a cliff; you don’t know if someone will catch you or if you’ll plummet to your death. Even spies understand that.”

“Maybe,” Blue says. “But I think we have to risk the jump.”

“Would you risk it?” Karin asks.

It takes Blue a moment to answer. “With the right person. If I knew it wouldn’t scare them away.”

For dessert, they share a lavender crème brûlée. It tastes of spring, completely opposite the weather just outside the restaurant’s warm walls. Karin scoots the bowl across to Blue and tells her, “I’ll burst if I eat another bite.”

Blue scrapes the bowl clean.

Outside, the air is colder. Blue hardly feels it. She is warm and immune, blaming it on both whiskey and Karin’s presence. The car ride back is silent, but the tune of it isn’t a struggle of coming up with something to talk about; it’s a comfortable silence, one that comes after you’ve said almost everything you’d wanted to say. There’s an undercurrent of questions—what comes next? What will be do?—but they’re not answered until the car stops outside Blue’s apartment complex. Karin says, “I’ll walk you up.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It wasn’t a question.” She unbuckles her seatbelt.

Blue scoffs. “You’re hot after a martini.”

“Is that a come-on?”

“It’s an observation,” Blue says, climbing out of the car and into the chill air. It’s scented with petrichor; a promise of rain, but the sky has chosen to hold off on it, at least for a while longer.

Together she and Karin ascend the stairs. The pause outside of Blue’s door. Hesitate.

“You know, Karin,” Blue says, “if you want to go to dinner with me… it doesn’t have to be outrageous.”

“I’ll come over with Thai and wear sweats next time, then.”

“You wear sweats?”

“When I’m not carefully curating my public image, yes, I wear sweats.”

“I can’t imagine it.”

“‘Course not. You’ve only ever seen me in this.” She gestures to her outfit.

Then let me take it off, Blue thinks, and subtly bites the inside of a cheek to keep the thought from presenting itself as a red blush. She says quietly, “I had a good time.”

Karin nods her agreement. “Me too.”

“I’m guessin’ you don’t want a nightcap.”

“We have work tomorrow.”

“Right,” Blue says. There’s the needle, hovering right over the bubble, like the keys hanging uselessly in Blue’s hand. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

She unlocks the door, pries it open. Almost gets it closed when Karin says, “Wait.” The door swings wide.

“You want that nightcap after all?” Blue jokes, but barely gets it out before hands press her shoulders and lavender-flavored lips crash into hers. The needle disappears. The bubble grows larger. The kiss parts, a soft sound, and for a moment hangs in the air. At last, Blue whispers, “What?”

“I’m trying to prove something,” Karin says, equally quietly, and goes in for another.

“You sound like a bad romance writer.”

“Do I?”

“Proving feelings by kissing someone.”

“You read romance?” Karin says.

“When I want a happy ending,” Blue replies.

Karin’s sigh is heavy. She sinks into the next kiss with what Blue can only describe as relief. “What are those, anyway?” Karin says.

“Things that happen more often than you think.” There are trials, deaths and breakups and ruined friendships and relationships, but then the characters find happiness, whatever that looks like for them. A person, a place, a thing—a living noun. Blue asks carefully, “Are you not happy, Karin?” She wants to hold her closer. Hold her all night.

“Not for a while,” Karin answers, pulling back, “but… I’m starting to be.”

The kiss had been goodnight. They say no more to each other. Karin only shuts the door softly behind her, leaving Blue standing in her empty, shoe-cluttered entryway.

**Author's Note:**

> Poem at the beginning is an untitled one of mine.


End file.
